Carty: Construction project still in early stage

Alan Warren | The Ann Arbor NewsRich Rodriguez has a significant rebuilding project ahead. Two games into the season, there are still more questions than answers.

Around midway through the second quarter, a small group of construction workers in orange vests and hard hats appeared on the steel skeleton overlooking the east side of Michigan Stadium.

They huddled together, watching the action below.

Maybe it was professional curiosity, taking time out from their massive project to see how Rich Rodriguez was doing with his.

The answer? Better than last week, but with some continuing engineering challenges in the area of quarterback and offensive line.

Serious challenges, particularly with a trip to Notre Dame next Saturday.

Two quarterbacks, a walk-on offensive lineman, freshmen running backs Sam McGuffie and Michael Shaw and receiver Martavious Odoms all chipped in just enough for the University of Michigan to take advantage of solid defense and eke out a 16-6 win over Miami of Ohio.

The project manager, a huge Clint Eastwood fan, had an easily understood analysis of what he'd just watched.

"The good, the bad and the ugly, we were all three of those at some time," Rodriguez said, smiling a little wearily. "We've got to eliminate the ugly and the bad and concentrate on the good and the OK."

Two weeks in, there are still more questions than answers about this team, still a big, big possibility that this could be a very tough season.

And what we do know starts with the negative.

First, that neither Steven Threet or Nick Sheridan has played well enough to grab the QB job for keeps. It's frustrating, their coach said.

Second, that the offensive line is a mess and got messier Saturday when left tackle Mark Ortmann went down with an injured right elbow. Ortmann's replacement? Bryant Nowicki, who until a few weeks ago was a completely unknown walk-on.

But third, Michigan's defense is the defense that gave Utah fits in the second half of the opener, not the defense that looked disinterested and slow in the first half.

And finally, Rodriguez is confident enough to share his frustrations with the world. That's a new thing around here, sort of refreshing and humanizing.

Saturday afternoon, the coach essentially embraced the badness, using some variation of the word frustrated at least six times in eight minutes. He wasn't down on his team or accentuating the negative, just admitting he saw the same thing everyone else did.

"There are times where we're looking for somebody to make a play - just make a play," Rodriguez said. "Somebody go make a play. We saw a little bit of that at times today, but we need more of that.

"It's very frustrating, exasperating, whatever adjective you want to put on it. We're not going to quit grinding away and doing what we do. I've been through some similar situations and right now, it is what it is. We'll keep working away."

There is no mystery here.

With Ortmann going down Saturday, Michigan has now lost seven of the top eight offensive linemen off last year's team. Jake Long and Adam Kraus graduated. Justin Boren, Alex Mitchell and Jeremy Ciulla quit. Cory Zirbel is gone for the year with a knee injury and now Ortmann's gone.

Add in the loss of quarterback Chad Henne and tailback Mike Hart - two of the most durable and experienced players in school history - and it's not a surprise that the bad and the ugly so far outweigh the good.

It's not Rodriguez. It's not the spread offense.

It's the reality of a complete and total makeover, one disrupted by injuries on the line, to backs Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor, and to the team's most experienced receiver, Greg Mathews.

"Our scheme, it's not an individual scheme," offensive line coach Greg Frey said. "It takes 11 guys to be on the right page and doing the right things, and when that happens, it's special."

A foundation isn't pretty, just a hole in the ground.

But you need it to build on.

For now, the good, the bad and the ugly are to be expected, and the win is all that matters.

Read more from Jim Carty at blog.mlive.com/jim_carty. He can be reached at 734-994-6815 or jcarty@annarbornews.com.